Kat, who I linked before, has been answering some guestions posed by a war skeptic. Her answers expand a good deal on the original post and give one a much better idea of what the reconstruction in Iraq is like. Because the news coverage of this aspect of the war has been totally worthless I highly recommend reading what she has to say at My Thinking Corner.
Teaser:
Second in importance were vital services, such as electricity or repairs to damaged water and sewer systems. This proved to be substantially more difficult than initially expected, partially due to war damage but largely due to long-term neglect under Saddam. For example, it was not unusual to replace an obviously damaged valve on a water supply system only to find that once pressure was placed on the balance of the line, three other valves (not to be found anywhere in Iraq) promptly blew, or whole sections of pipe split, or leaks developed around hundreds of packing joints and gaskets.
Yeah, that was for you civil engineering and construction geeks.
Update: (From MeaninglessHotAir) Kat's comments on Thinking Corner may well be the best thing you will ever encounter on this blog. Drop everything and read them now, and forget for a moment all the other dreck out there on television, in the newspapers, and, yes, even on this blog.
9 comments:
"We can remove dishonest politicians, but there is no formula or set of laws available to remove a dishonest media. So if we are content to be foolish, which is potentially more dangerous?"
Kat ain't no dummy.
The "more troops" argument by that blogger (not Kat) reveals a pretty basic lack of understanding of security issues. Law enforcement can use a force of under 20K to maintain order in LA because 99.9% of the population is law abiding in the first place. If it ever drops to 99% 200K cops won't be able to maintain order. And soldiers are not cops.
We could have more security with a lot fewer troops if we instituted "shoot a sheik day" every day for a month. First assign them the job of security - which is their primary function anyway - and then shoot the ones who don't perform. It would be a lot less bloody to do that than trying to ferret out that .08% of the population who are raising hell - at the sheiks instigation.
Chuck,
Thank you!
That was the most inspiring and honest thing I have read in years. I only wish that I could get many of my fellow countrymen and women to read it with an open heart.
The idiot whose blog it is on is yearning for a powerful dictator, one who doesn't make mistakes, one who sings the perfect song. The world's all messed up because of....Bush! He's not the perfect God-like daddy we deserve. Some people will never be ready for democracy.
found this link on my dashboard, for some reason the comments section here is forcing me to use my blogger ID.
All I can say is this, I say and write more than enough things that would earn me the label "idiot". Please use those, rather than projecting your general disagreements with liberals on me.
In military matters, I favor the Powell Doctrine, overwhelming force, quick, clear exit strategy. While you may disagree with me, I don't think it's unreasonable to fault Bush for not following that stategy.
The Idiot Blogger
Whatever the many failings of Canadians and their liberalism, the cultural dynamic here is quite unlike that in Europe (if anything it is becoming more like China's....!). Please recognize our failings for what they are, rather than projecting your general disagreement with Europeans on us. (Just checking to see if that makes logical sense-;)
Just one example: at the recent meeting of the Francopohonie, our Prime Minister alone among the Jew-bashers forced the national leaders to rework their anti-Israel declaration. Harper has since made it clear that when faced with a choice between Israel and Hezbollah, there can be no question of neutrality.
Knuck, I take it you have been reading that chap, sometimes called a Canadian, Mark Steyn. No doubt we need to pay attention to his nightmare, if we aren't yet. But his defeatism, his willingness to write off Europe, is not what WE need to believe. It's the equivalent of listening to Iraq doom sayers and not to Kat. Europe can change around, and pretty quickly once people come to realize that their political class cannot protect and coddle them any more and that they must learn again to do things for themselves.
Europe can change around, and pretty quickly once people come to realize that their political class cannot protect and coddle them any more and that they must learn again to do things for themselves.
If you get the chance, read Wyst:Alastor 1716 by Jack Vance. See if he didn't get it right.
Knucklehead,
Thanks for the response and the opportunity to answer your questions.
The last time we attempted to completely remake a society was Japan at the end of WW2. That took an occupation force of ~350K troops that stayed for 7 years. This was for a country with a long tradition of submitting to authority. My very unscientific guess is that it would take more to secure Iraq.
My exit strategy beef ties in with the troop commitment argument. If you want things to be quick and relatively inexpensive (the Bush/Rumsfeld choice), then change as little as possible. Leave the Ba’athists in charge and the security apparatus in place where it's convenient. Once the new (bought and paid for) oligarchy is in place, gradually leave. Wash, rinse and repeat in 10 – 15 years. Please note, I’m not advocating this approach but it seems preferable to splitting Iraq in 3.
If you want to really remake the society, then you must have more security. More security means more troops. Enough to secure the cities, train Iraqi Security forces, hunt insurgents and close the borders to the Mujahideen and arms from Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia. The exit strategy comes when the players in Iraq realize they can more successfully acquire power through business and politics than through violence. There is no timetable in such an occupation. We would be spending an awful lot of money, much more than we are now. But if we’re going to go into Iraq and claim the moral high ground, this is the path we should have taken. If we don’t have that force, then we shouldn’t have gone in the first place.
Final note, since I agree with part of what you say on the press and I don’t have the energy to address where we disagree there. I find it interesting that you bring up Japan, S. Korea and China as non-helpful entities. I think we’ll see that start to change in the Far East and we have Lil’ Kim to thank for it. The anti-nuke, anti-Americanism of Japan and S. Korea has been made possible by the umbrella of American military power. They’re rethinking that right now. And China is asking themselves, which would I rather have? A nuclear and militarized Japan and S. Korea on my doorstep or the current modest US presence? It will be interesting to watch what happens.
Sorry for the long comment. You asked good questions and they deserve good answers, or at least the best I can come up with.
Cheers
Ahh Yes, How to remake the world, or a small portion of it, without becoming the Colonist. Or being perceived as the Colonist. This seems to be part of the issue of troop size and how long to stay.
This was touched upon several times at Belmont Club, about 2 years ago, if I remember.
Being an Engineer, I tend to want the advantages of Colonization (British model) building up the infrastructure and developing an overall sense of cooperation (trading and minimal private & public bureaucracy). I also desire to minimize the graft.
Very difficult to plan, even worse to accomplish. Everyone wants to create the hated and inefficient bureaucracy to handle it. Both Libs and Conservs will desire the bureaucracy, to different degrees. The Libertarians want little or no bureaucracy but, most of them seem to have a hard time cooperating to get the job done.
Kat seems to represent what we need. People who will go and do what must be done. There are a lot of us who feel we have a 'calling' but, the opportunities seem to be limited.
Knuck,
You are right about Canada, to a point. E.g. Harper will be very lucky to get anywhere near forty percent of the votes next time (in our four party system and the other three parties are all to his left).
All nations, even the US, like to think their mere existence is proof of their virtue, and to take this as some guarantee of their eternal promise. But, as we should know, nothing lasts forever and sometimes it is when we are full of ourselves that we are closer to the end.
I would not judge Canada as a particularly strong nation at present, though I imagine the situation is better than in EUrope. While I think we still have a higher immigration per capita, we have a strong economy, highly focussed on international trade, haven't had a federal government deficit in years, have low unemployment with lots of low-skill service sector jobs going begging at present. And we have the second largest oil reserves in the world.
But we do have a political and intellectual class withoug a lot of vision and a fear of conflict. Harper is relatively rare in having a moral centre. Multiculturalism is as irrational here as anywhere, but as yet we don't have huge ghettos of unassimilated newcomers. People generally assimilate and sound like everyone else in talking up the irrational ideology of multiculturalism while trying to get ahead in the economy (the point being that we don't yet have many making a virtue of protesting modernity and refusing to participate). Multicultural irrationality means we less rule ourselves as a united Canadian people, as we are ruled by overlords hammering out their quotas or whatever in the back rooms. But multiculti empires can be relatively stable, if not as stable in the long run as nations.
While we are a left-liberal empire to a significant degree, we are also still something of a naiton with a moral centre, as Harper evidences... Anyway, all such empires are not the same. The European empire is really quite different despite some similarities in its political pieties.
Skook, you may be right about Steyn's strategy. It's a tall order but there are signs people are starting to face up to it because there just is no half-decent alternative. All great things come from necessity. So it's good to show the necessity, if you don't forget the hope.
...the US provided the security under which the Japanese restructured their own society within a set of "big rules" that the US insisted on.
Well, MacArthur's staff wrote the constitution and MacArthur broke up the feudal land holdings and sold the property to the peasants. Many think that land reform was instrumental in forming a conservative nucleus that stabilized Japanese politics. MacArthur putting down the labor movement is more controversial and may have kept Japan stuck with a one party system all those years.
There was a find several years ago of various experimental constitutions in some farm house attic dating to the 1870's or some such. Apparently writing constitutions was all the rage for a while but lost its appeal as the Meiji restoration proceeded.
The Germans wrote their own constitution and the federal system they came up with probably accounts for some of the stability they have enjoyed since. They also kept some of Hitler's institutions, in particular the stronger version of the welfare state originally introduced by Bismarck. Some other laws also remained on the books, such as the law against home schooling that the Nazi's instituted against Seventh Day Adventists and other non conforming groups. Citizenship remained a matter of blood until revised by Schroder. That is why so many second/third generation Turks were never German citizens. Sort of the European assimulation problem in its startkest form.
I think that in the Arab world any sort of Democracy will have to have a tribal aspect. I would probably have put the tribes in something like the senate, but that hasn't happened. The Iraqis may be the first to find a solution to the tribal problem if they have the time. If they do figure it out, it will be a real innovation in the area.
Post a Comment